04 April 2008

Clue to early Americans lies in origin of the feces | Seattle Times Newspaper

Archaeologists have found 14,300-year-old fossilized feces in a cave in Oregon.

DNA analysis of the dried excrement shows the people who lived in the caves were closely related to modern Native Americans. Their genetic roots reach across the Bering Strait to Siberia and eastern Asia.

"These are probably the ancestors of some of the Native Americans living in America now," said Eske Willerslev, director of the Centre for Ancient Genetics at the University of Copenhagen.